In Gail Hemmerter's "How to Read Poetry" he writes many questions to ask when trying to understanding poetry. He does this so that reader can see his step by step process that he follows when reading a poem. The passage
Unless the reader has experienced what is described in the poem some of the emotions will be foreign to them. Not only is the subject and ideology hard to comprehend, but the literary elements can confuse readers. Outwitting the things, they encounter such as word play in a poem, or just the harsh unsettled land that the pilgrims encountered is essential. Most poetry has some form of word play, like in “Eagle Poem”, that makes readers avoid poems all together. In “Eagle Poem” by Joy Harjo symbolism is used to compare the life of an eagle to the circle of life we all face.
The poem revolves around the many books that the speaker finds within a library and how they impact her, “To meet an antique book,” implies that it is not a book the speaker already owns. The poem makes a reader feel like they have to go pick up a book right now, making the mood almost a sense of longing for a good book, “His presence is enchantment, / You beg him not to go;” (25 and 26). The author also helps convey this mood through her diction. She uses phrases such as, “A precious, mouldering pleasure” (1), “A privilege” (4), “warming” (6), “enchantment” (25), and “tantalize” (28) when describing how the speaker herself feels when holding a book. Emily even goes on to use adjectives such as: “venerable” (5) to create sentences like “His venerable hand to take,” (5) to pull the theme and mood out.
The theme of the poem is that there is good and bad in life it can go either way anytime in life. The tone also helped shape the poem because the one gave of the theme. The reason why I think that the theme is because in each part of the poem the tone constantly changes. For instance in stanza 1 the tone happy, in stanza 2 the tone is melancholy, in stanza 3 the tone remorse and the last stanza is
The poem includes several different tones and examples of imagery to give the reader a true sense of what this poem is supposed to mean. Many of the metaphors used are presented in such a way that deems as strange or mistaken for. The narrator starts off the poem with a somber, thoughtful statement: “I am wearing dark glasses inside the house To match my dark mood”. To be wearing dark glass inside of the house is strange enough in itself as it makes their vision of the world that much darker. This is due to the literal sense that in
In this collection, poems are written by various authors which also made this collection of poems has a wide range of works. Love as a theme of the poems actually took a very important place in the collection. These love poems often contain different emotions. There are poems expressing the author fall in love with someone or poems expressing painful feelings about missing someone else. One interesting thing I noticed is that the
This reminds me of other poems by Lucille Clifton that I’ve read: “Miss Rosie” and “Won’t You Celebrate With Me.” There is no capitalization, no rhyme, and some line breaks in the middle of sentences and phrases to allow for no rhythm. Also, the general theme of her poems relates to overcoming some hardship. There is contrast between the first and second half’s tone. Clifton uses this style to great effect, and that’s why I find her poems so extraordinary, especially “Here Yet Be
This helps enhance the reminiscent tone as it reminds the readers of casual conversation or looking back at old photographs. Furthermore, this repetition adds to the meaning of the poem because it explains what I want to be remembered
A fog must lift and when it does, everyone gets liberated from the uncertainty of everything. The poem, which talks about a conflicting relationship with the speaker’s father and the heartache from a recent breakup, conveys a deep sense of unpredictability and mystery. The tone that the speaker uses is dreary, but also hopeful at the end, that one day, she may be free from all the pains that she is undergoing right now. The word “fog” best encapsulates all of this as it represents uncertainty, but hope and joy when it finally
When the reader first sees this poem on the page they think that it is a bunch of nonsense such as it is a broken up telephone message that the receiver doesn’t understand half of it and the message just turns into gibberish. Some readers can say that the poem is childish, really simple to read and not get the gist of it as well as repetitive. Other readers may think that it is a silly aspect and feel ashamed to even read it aloud or just read it in general. In other words, the world today members of society take things way too seriously and what us humans have to say isn’t always important or have a purpose and is finally catchy. The reader when they first read this poem would think the poem is full of words that mean absolutely nothing and just move on to the next